The Darkest Winter

by Lindsey Pogue

  The caribou prints were still fresh as were the snowmobile path from Del’s impromptu hunting yesterday after the accident. Other than tire tracks I felt safe assuming were from the Dodge and F350, it appeared no one else had been on the road.

  “My first bag’s full!” Thea chirped.

  “Mine too,” Beau said, bending over to grab a box of crackers and shove on top.

  “Set them on the sled and fill up the next one,” Sophie said, bent over the medical supplies. She searched through the contents on the ground and what was left inside the bin.

  “Beau,” Alex said, calling him over. “Why don’t you help me get this camping gear loaded on the sled. I could use the extra muscle.”

  “Okay,” Beau answered happily, and he handed Thea his canvas bag.

  All of them were busy at work without a single complaint. It was still jarring to think I hadn’t wanted to be a part of the kids’ life in any other capacity than travel companion months ago, now I couldn’t imagine the next five months without them. I tried not to think about it and walked over to the Expedition to get the luggage tossed around in the back.

  Staring at the dented hatch, I wondered what it would take to get it open when I saw a pad print with four claws under my feet.

  Crouching down, I followed tracks a few yards north and then back, almost like they were on the trail of something specific. Slowly, I rose to my feet and followed them to the other side and froze. There were claw marks in the snow, near the backseat where either Thea or Beau had been sitting almost like the wolves had been trying to get in or get something out. Food, maybe.

  Chills trickled up my spine.

  I might not have thought twice about it, had I not seen this same thing once before.

  Chapter 40

  Elle

  While the others were at the road, gathering our frozen belongings, I straightened our little living space the best I could, smoothing out the elk hide blanket that covered Took’s bed, doing a slow, awkward side bend to pick up Beau’s socks from yesterday that were half-hidden beneath the pinewood bedframe. It was only a matter of days, maybe even hours before we would leave, and with our few belongings already packed in our backpacks, it was difficult to find something to do. I didn’t want to bother Jade or Del; they were in mourning.

  While I missed the chatter of the kids to occupy my mind, I didn’t mind that Jackson was gone. It was easier that way, for now. While we would talk, eventually, it was a matter of timing again, but for the Ranskins’ sake this time. We’d caused enough upset in their lives for one day.

  Stepping outside, I decided I needed fresh air, and a little sunshine wouldn’t hurt. There had to be a scientific study published, probably at a college campus on the California coast about the healing powers of sunshine, or maybe that was just wishful thinking. I doubted it could heal broken bones, but it might help ease my mind.

  Face to the sun, I closed my eyes against the bright rays and inhaled the morning air. The warblers chirped, the pine trees rustled in the light breeze . . . and my hand flexed at my side. It was too quiet, and I was stewing. I couldn’t run or help at the road, but I would find something to do.

  The Ranskins’ dog yawned and stretch by his kennel, his tag wagging when he noticed me. With a yip, he paced back and forth, looking at me like he was waiting for something. I hadn’t learned his name, there had been little opportunity for casual conversation, but he had long[MOU98], gray, and slender with a bush tail and white around his mouth.

  The closer I drew the more excited he became, and he nudged his empty bowl. “Ah, it’s breakfast time,” I realized. Or maybe past it. “I’ll see what I can find.” I wasn’t familiar with the property aside from what I’d seen walking from one house to the other, but I could probably figure out where they kept the dog food.

  Veering away from the outbuilding I knew held Jet’s body, I headed to the shop where I assumed meat and other foods were stored. It was heavily latched with reinforced metal siding, enough to make it more bear proof than the rest.

  I made a mental list of other tasks that might be helpful as I passed the smokehouse, including checking the fire and pulling the laundry down from the line to fold once it was ready.

  The latch was already open, and for a second, I wondered if I should go in, when I heard a thwack followed by scraping. Curiosity outweighing uncertainty, I creaked the door open. It was the size of a two-car garage with a workbench along the back wall and a large table with stone slaps in the center. Blood stained bits of the wood, but it was too cold to smell anything other than the cold metal that braced the sides.

  Took stood at a worktable, cutting up caribou meat. Del was unexpectedly detained after I’d crashed outside the property and every second following. Took was picking up the slack. I was about to offer to help, even if it was cleaning off his machete or getting him a glass of water when he said, “Have you ever killed and prepared your own meat before?”

  I blinked at him as he stared down at the meat strips he was tossing into a bin.

  “No,” I admitted. “I haven’t.”

  Took hauled a rack of ribs [LL99]onto the cutting board from the workbench behind him and thwacked it in half. He managed it effortlessly despite his age lines and peppered hair poking out from beneath his cap.

  “Well, I guess I’ve killed my meat before,” I joked, looking at what was left on the worktable. “But I’ve never prepared it before.”

  “It’s a satisfying thing.”

  “I can imagine.” And I could imagine that. Out here living was about knowledge, hard work, and patience, and with those three things I would never have to worry about having enough food. Two buckets of entrails had been set aside in the corner. The look for raw meat was something I would have to get used to though.

  “Do you know what a caribou flank would cost at a butcher?” Took looked up at me this time. I’d assumed he was being facetious, but he had a genuine look of curiosity.

  I shook my head. I’d never tried to buy one before. “A lot?”

  Took shrugged. “I’ve never had to before either.”[SD100][101].”

  “Touché,” I said smiling, and I stepped further inside. “Can I help you with anything? The rest of the gang went to get our supplies cleaned up off the road. I’m in the market for some chores.” I held my palm up to add, “I should preface that I’m not good for much,” and ended up wincing in tandem.

  Took lifted an eyebrow. “Restless already?”

  “Pretty much. Ever since—” I hesitated. The outbreak was probably like a fresh, gaping wound to them because it was all so new. He didn’t need reminding.

  Took tied a strap of leather around a caribou thigh. “The sickness,” he finished for me. “You might as well say it.” He hefted it up and stepped awkwardly past me, his weight unevenly distributed as he headed out the door.

  “Okay . . . Ever since the outbreak, it’s unnerving to be idle.” I followed him out to the smoker. “You think you won’ survive the illness, the next thing you know you’re just trying to stay alive. Even in Slana, before all of this happened, we spent our time stocking up and preparing for what comes next. So, being busy keeps me focused.”

  Took glanced over his shoulder as he pulled the knot on one crossbeam tight. “A restless mind is a restless soul,” he said, stringing up the caribou.

  He was right about that.

  Once he was satisfied the meat was secure, he faced me, gazed fixed on me and thoughtful. He was a little taller than me, maybe five-eight or nine, and reminded me of an old fisherman I used to see at the dock often in Seward. He had baggy all-weather trousers on and a trench coat of sorts that looked waterproof, maybe easy to clean after a day handling meat. “It is a test,” he said, walking past me[K102] and out the door.

  “Yeah, another one,” I muttered with a humorless laugh.

  Took turned to me. “Everything is a test,” he said, and my face flushed. He was referring to himself too, to the turmoil his family was facing. �
��It’s all part of change, and even if it’s difficult, it’s a natural part of life.”

  I wasn’t sure how natural the outbreak was; he was right. Nothing was certain and change was inevitable, no matter how big and small, even if knowing all of that didn’t make coping easier.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “That was insensitive. We’ve turned your world upside down—”

  “You should never be sorry for telling the truth,” he said, pointing at me with a dirt and bloodstained hand. Although he was adamant, his voice was soft. “If you hadn’t showed up, we wouldn’t have a month’s worth of caribou meat.” He lifted an eyebrow to make his point. “Everything happens for a reason. You are here for a reason.”

  For a man who had to give up his house for us to stay in, watch his daughter grieve for her only son, and mourn Jet for himself, he was less cantankerous than usual. “Thank you.”

  “What are you thanking me for?” he grumbled. And there he was again. “For putting things in perspective.” As bad as I felt for all of them, I knew Took was right; they may or may not have ever known what happened to Jet.

  His gray eyes twinkled and looked pale blue in the sunlight.

  He lifted one bucket of entrails onto the worktable. “What are you going to do with those?”

  “Save some for bait.”

  “For fishing,” I realized.

  “And trapping,” he clarified. “It’s time to stock up for winter again.”

  “Never a dull moment living out here,” I mused, but it was admiration I felt.

  He walked to the corner of the shed and using a thickly folded cloth; he took a metal pot off the stove that looked more like a bucket. It wasn’t boiling, but steam rose from it, and I wondered if it was for entrail stew. Without insulation, I hadn’t noticed the heat inside the shop, but then I was already warm as it was.

  “Can you carry this?” he asked, glancing at my rib. The pot wasn’t any bigger than a tea kettle so I nodded. “Good. Take this to Jade, she’s in the shed.”

  I nodded because I wouldn’t say no, but I wasn’t sure she’d want me in there. I picked it up off the table with the folded cloth, feeling the weight of the water in every part of my body as it protested, but I wasn’t going to complain. I turned to leave. “Oh, the dog’s hungry.”

  “Yeah, Bear’s always hungry. I’ll take care of it. Go on now,” he urged. “Jade could use a hand, and since you’ve only got one to spare . . .”

  I pursed my lips and glanced over my shoulder, trying not to smile. Took had made a joke, but you would never know it as he dug through gut buckets as if he had said nothing at all.

  With a deep breath, I squared my shoulders and steeled myself for what awaited me in the shed. I knew Jade was readying her son’s body for burial, something that felt especially intimate, but I got the impression Took didn’t want Jade to be alone.

  Hesitant, I stopped at the door and tapped my knuckles on its rough surface. I’d grieved for my sister’s death and for a life I hadn’t appreciated to the fullest, but I’d never grieved for a child, and I wasn’t sure what state I would find her in inside.

  “Jade,” I whispered. When she said nothing, I thought maybe she’d gone into the house, but when I creaked the door open, she stood on the far side of a wooden table. Mechanical parts were stacked beneath its thick legs, and plants and burlap bags with bulbs poking out of them hung in clay pots on the walls. Soil dusted the ground, and it looked like their garden shed and garage were the same.

  Her son’s body laying out on a blanket of caribou hide, wrapped from the waist down. “I’m sorry to intrude,” I said stepping inside. “But, I have the water.” She brushed Jet’s black hair out of his face as a tear dripped down onto his shoulder.

  Uncertain where she wanted it, I placed it on the table by the crook of his neck.

  Like Jade, he had a tattoo, but not dashes on his chin. A black and red Haida moon wrapped around his right shoulder, glistening with Jade’s tears in the sunlight. I tried to reconcile the way he looked now, discolored but not dead-for-five-months decayed, and how he might’ve looked when before.

  Jade stared at his face, her eyes red-rimmed but bright in the sunlight. “When he was a boy,” she started, a small smile curving her lips. “He loved ice fishing.” She looked up at me, as if a thought struck her. “Have you ever been ice fishing?”

  I nodded. “Once, when I was a nine.”

  “With your father?”

  “Yeah, something like that.” Dr. John was the closest thing I ever had, at some point I had to accept it.

  Jade stared at me a moment, her honey-brown eyes tightening, like she was trying to understand, or perhaps she lost herself in a memory of her son again. “Jet loved it. Del and I thought for sure he would be a fisherman one day.” She looked back down at him, seeing the boy he’d been instead of the lifeless man he was. “Can you hand me one of those rags, please?” She pointed to the shelves in the corner where three of them stacked folded.

  I handed it to her as she poured water into a ceramic dish resting on the table in the crook of his neck. She took the cloth, testing the heat of the water before she submerged the cloth. Unrushed and thoughtful she wiped his body. She ran the rag over his cheeks gently as if she were bathing a small delicate child. A trail of steam followed each careful stroke.

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” I asked, needing to make myself useful somewhere else if she didn’t.

  Her head drifted to the right and then the left as she memorized the curves of his face. He was a handsome man with more arrow features than Jade had and sporadic, black whiskers on his face. “After I had Jet, I thought I might want to have another child, until I saw what kind of father my husband was.” There was a sadness in her voice I understood. A longing, like I often longed for a real family in my childhood. “I wanted Jet to have someone to play with, but it never worked out that way. There were other children in the village back then, but I know he grew lonely sometimes. When you live out here, it’s easy to keep busy, but the quiet hours are harder for some; Jet struggled with it, I think that’s why he moved to town with Sarah. He liked the noise and the city.” She talked about him with a smile in her voice. “He thought I was so silly for calling it that. I’ve always liked the quiet though. It brings me peace, something that Del realized a long time ago.”

  “He moved out here just before my husband died, you know? He had a ranch back in Oklahoma, came here on a fishing trip, my husband was his guide, and Del never left. Jet and I were lucky for that.” Her eyes shimmered as she dipped the rag in the water again and rang it out. “You find people in your life when you need them,” she said thoughtfully. “That’s something I’ve always believed.” She looked up at me and smiled. My chest ached hearing the sincerity in her words.

  She was right, we’d needed them in more ways than one, and they’d needed us in some strange way too, it seemed.

  She peered down at Jet and took his hand in hers.

  “Will you bury him today?” I asked.

  “Tonight,” she whispered, running the damp cloth over his fingers. “When the lights dance in the sky.”

  Chapter 41

  Elle

  We stood, nine strong at Jet and Sarah’s graves, protected beneath a towering spruce in a quiet winterland. Only the sound of a soft wind blew easily through the boughs above. Jet’s wrapped body was barely visible as Del and Took placed the final two stones over his body, a fortified protection from the elements and the wildland creatures above the frozen earth.

  Though the sun had long set, the snow sparkled in the dancing light illuminating the sky. They’d always felt like an earthly wonder, but tonight they were more than that. The northern lights were vibrant with life and hope.

  Del stood beside Jade and took her hand in his. She squeezed his fingers before she took a step closer to the grave and placed a bear figurine on the headstone. The air was biting and cold, puffs of white comingling between us in our half circle of grie
f and sadness.

  Jade sniffled as she straightened, then she stepped back into line. Del bowed his head, as did the children, Thea taking Jade’s hand in hers as she peered down at her little snow-dampened boots.

  Then Jade began to sing. It was a whisper at first, words I’d never heard but that were more beautiful than anything ever spoken. As her voice grew louder, I recognized the tune and my eyes blurred with tears. Amazing Grace.

  Jackson looked at her, surprised at first, and then his hard expression softened, the angles melting as he listened. I wanted to know what he was thinking, almost yearned to, but when he peered up at the lights, so did I and imagined a life where all things could be so breathtaking.

  “Dance with the spirits, my son,” she said when she finished, and a strong gust of wind blew through the trees, sending Jade’s fur cape flapping in the breeze as she kissed her flattened palm and bent down to place it on one stone.

  Thea did the same, reclaiming Jade’s hand again, and we all stood in respective silence, taking in the beautiful lights that shimmered above us, clearer than they’d been on any night before.

  “He will live with the spirits now,” Jade said, peering down at Thea, then at Beau. “With all the souls and spirits that have come before him, animal and man alike.”

  Thea blinked up at the lights in awe. Beau did the same, but his cheeks shone with dampness, which I hadn’t expected. I took Beau’s mittened hand in mine, and a wolf’s howl in the forest around us, closer than I was comfortable with.

  Blood pumping with unease, I peered into the woods surrounding us. They were close. Too close.

  “Come,” Del said behind me. “Let’s go back to the house.”

  “Are they going to eat Jet?” Thea whined behind me.

  “No sweets,” Jade said. “They can’t smell him. It’s still too cold for that.”

  “Come on, Beau.” I turned to leave, squeezing his hand in mine, but he dug his feet into the snow, jerking me back. I grimaced and tried not to snap at him.